Foreign students making a splash / Employers tapping overseas market to find summer help

Julie N. Lynem, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PDT, Sunday, July 8, 2001

Joey O'Sullivan, shown here, and Tomas Francis, who work at Paramount's Great America, are among hundreds of international students hired by local employers. Chronicle photo by Penni Gladstone

Joey O'Sullivan, shown here, and Tomas Francis, who work at Paramount's Great America, are among hundreds of international students hired by local employers. Chronicle photo by Penni Gladstone

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Joey O'Sullivan, shown here, and Tomas Francis, who work at Paramount's Great America, are among hundreds of international students hired by local employers. Chronicle photo by Penni Gladstone

Joey O'Sullivan, shown here, and Tomas Francis, who work at Paramount's Great America, are among hundreds of international students hired by local employers. Chronicle photo by Penni Gladstone

Foreign students making a splash / Employers tapping overseas market to find summer help

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Since they came to the Bay Area from Ireland a few weeks ago, college students Joey O'Sullivan and Tomas Francis have spent hours soaking up the thrills at Paramount's Great America. But the Santa Clara theme park isn't just a source of amusement - it's a source of employment.

The best friends are among 200 international students who are not only giving Great America a splash of international flavor, but are boosting its summer workforce.

"We had to take the chance," said 19-year-old O'Sullivan, who works with Francis at the Rip Roaring Rapids water ride. "We thought that we might never get this chance again."

The amusement park is one of many employers recruiting international students in an effort to promote diversity and fill employee vacancies, especially during the summer months.

Great America, which started the summer exchange program about three years ago, works with UNYX International, a Los Angeles-area recruitment agency that hires international college students for jobs in the United States. The students, all at least 18 years old, come from Europe, Asia, and Central and South America. After getting trained and certified to work on the rides, they spend an average of two to three months working at the park before returning home, said Nicole Koebrich, Great America's public relations area manager.

They earn the same wages as American-born summer help - about $7 to $20, depending on the job. Housing for the international students is provided at a nearby apartment complex.

"There aren't a lot of high school students who want to commit their entire summer to working," Koebrich said, explaining why the park looked overseas for help.

More international students, many from Western Europe, are traveling to the United States, said Bill Harwood, president of Sausalito-based Work Experience USA, which helps them land American jobs.

As the long economic expansion boosted the demand for workers, many employers relaxed their hiring practices. Partly because of that, international students, who have become more savvy about finding a job in the United States, are no longer frightened by the prospect of looking for a job overseas, Harwood said.

"One of the reasons employers choose to hire internationals is because they get very motivated, articulate and intelligent young folks that really want to learn about America," he said. "And the students . . . get to meet people from all over the world and learn the American work ethic."

This year, Work Experience USA has brought in more than 5,500 people to work in summer jobs, Harwood said. About 1,000 of those are in West Coast states, he said.

Students who want to work and travel in the United States for a few months must obtain a J-1 visa. While some seek temporary positions at architectural firms or computer companies, Harwood said, most work in the service industry, in areas that cater to Americans on vacation, including Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks, beach resorts, casinos and hotels.

The hiring of international students for seasonal jobs may be fueled by a shift in the attitudes of American youth, said Stephen Baiter, director of youth programs at the Opportunities Industrialization Center West, a vocational job training center in Menlo Park. Local youths have begun to shun service jobs like those at amusement parks and fast-food restaurants because of the low wages, he said.

Instead, many have taken advantage of the higher salaries that computer companies were offering to attract workers and interns, he said.

"There are raised expectations, but there's also a lowered sense of obligation," Baiter said. "Some young people feel like they shouldn't have to work as hard to make so little money."

"There were some youth who I didn't feel had a lot of skills to offer," he said, "but they were coming back and saying, 'I'm making $12 an hour.' That's a pretty good wage for a 17-year-old It's having a networking effect among the peer group. If so-and-so is making $15 an hour, everyone else thinks they should be making $15 an hour, too."

"Because of the insurance, some companies say it's just too expensive to hire someone that young," Switzer said. "And the 16- and 17-year-olds . . . many of them want to work in offices that are air-conditioned, not in fast food."

Despite the current economic slump, the unemployment rate for American teens is one of the lowest in decades, according to an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by the Employment Policy Foundation, a nonprofit research foundation that focuses on workplace trends. The jobless rate for youths this summer is expected to be 14.7 percent, up from 13.4 percent last summer, but far below the 20-plus percent rate in the early 1990s.

More than 10.1 million teenagers held jobs last August - most in sales and food service - and the typical earnings over the 12-week summer were $2,067, according to the foundation's analysis.

Even so, American employers are beginning to turn to foreign-born workers to fill a growing share of low-skill jobs. About 1.1 million new lower-skilled immigrants in the labor force have filled the gap since 1994 as the native- born population attracted to such jobs has declined from 9 million to 7.6 million.

Although the figures are small in comparison, the foundation also found that the number of foreign-born workers in the entertainment and amusement industry has grown as well.

In 1994, there were 16,337 non-citizen workers ages 16 to 24 employed in those occupations nationally, compared with 405,832 native-born workers in the same age group. Last year, the number of non-citizen workers in that age group increased to 29,726, while the number of citizens in those positions slipped to 314,291.

Every summer for the past 15 years, dozens of international students from England, Russia, Bulgaria, France, Spain and Italy have made their way to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for a cultural exchange, said Marq Lipton, vice president of marketing for the Santa Cruz Seaside Company, which operates the Boardwalk.

The first group consisted of 30 students. This summer, there are more than 160 working at the Boardwalk, out of a total seasonal workforce of about 800. The international students all stay in studios or apartments within walking distance of the beach and earn roughly $7 to $8 an hour.

"To fully staff up, we need a more diverse pool of employees," Lipton said. "We still hire a lot of local kids, and not just kids. We have hired some retired folks. The foreign students just add another element that's important."

Jeff Jouett, a spokesman for Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo and Waterworld USA in Concord and Sacramento, said that he appreciates the enthusiasm international students bring to their work. However, the parks decided to scale back the hiring of international students this summer.

The wages that the students were paid - through an employment agency the parks hired to recruit the students - were not keeping pace with the rising cost of housing, he said. Last year, Six Flags Marine World had 200 international students working at the park. This year, about 40 have been hired to work in the three parks. In addition, the parks have put the students on their payrolls this year.Another reason for the cutback, Jouett said, is that only 125 of the 200 international students recruited to work at Six Flags Marine World showed up to work for the entire stint. The others participated in the program to get the visa, but didn't sign on to do the work.

"It is a potential source of seasonal employees for us," he said. "But it's not without its problems."

Still, Jouett said the park may step up its international recruiting efforts next year.

"The ones that do come to work are good workers, and they're dedicated," he said. "Their customer service is superior."

At Great America, 17-year-old Michelle Beardslee has been impressed with her international counterparts. Beardslee, who will be a senior at San Jose's Lincoln High School in the fall, said the students have inspired her to travel overseas someday.

"They're both cute and really responsible," said Beardslee, who works with Tomas Francis and Joey O'Sullivan on the Rip Roaring Rapids ride. "And they have a great sense of humor. I've really enjoyed having them here."

The plane was flying over the Andes when huge black rocks suddenly appeared out the left window. Then, a metallic sound as the aircraft scraped the mountain.

The fuselage ripped open like flesh before a scalpel. Everything went very white and very cold.

The charter plane carrying 45 people, including Nando Parrado, his mother, sister and members of his Uruguayan rugby team, split apart.

The front section floated briefly, then slid like a toboggan onto a snowy peak, 11,500 feet up. For 13 of the passengers, the crash meant instant death; for the others, it was the beginning of 72 days of frozen hell.

In the years that followed his rescue, Parrado became incredibly successful,

founding two television stations, running six companies, winning many awards for motorcycle and stock car racing.

Parrado took the lessons he learned on that frozen mountain nearly 30 years ago and transferred them to the workplace, so successfully that he was selected as the keynote speaker at the recent convention of the Society for Human Resource Management in San Francisco.

His main message may shock driven American workers: Love, not workaholism, is the key to survival.

Parrado's story is interwoven with lessons about leadership, decision- making, teamwork, faith and the importance of friendship.

In October 1972, Parrado, then 19, was flying to Santiago, Chile, with his rugby teammates. It was a Friday, the 13th day of the month, perhaps the unluckiest day ever for those aboard the plane. Yet what came after the crash was an incredible tale of survival, made into the film "Alive," starring Ethan Hawke as Parrado, a reluctant leader.

During that first night on the mountain, teamwork, common sense and quick decision-making saved the survivors' lives, Parrado said. Realizing they would die of exposure unless they plugged a gaping hole in what was left of the plane, they made a wall of suitcases and airplane seats to keep out the worst of the elements.

Experts later were surprised that anyone survived more than 48 hours on the mountain, where nighttime temperatures dipped to 40 below zero.

Despite the passengers' efforts, some did die by the next morning, including Parrado's mother. A week later, his sister died in his arms.

At that point, Parrado made a decision that would save the lives of 16 people. "I would do anything possible to get back to my father, to tell him, ÔI'm alive,' " he said.

He closed off his emotions, allowing not one tear to fall the entire time, because that would mean losing salt.

"I turned myself into a surviving machine," Parrado said. "I said ÔI'll get out of here or I'll die trying.' "

By the 10th day, the men heard on a small transistor radio that the search for them had been called off. After that, the group's first leader was too depressed to lead anymore.

And they were starving. All the food they had for 29 people was two chocolate bars, one bottle of wine and a half-box of chocolate-covered peanuts.

"We tried to eat some shoes and suitcases," Parrado said.

Two new leaders emerged. As in many workplaces, they were reluctant. But they had the necessary skills. They were medical students who advised the group that, if they were to live, they would have to eat.

The group, all Catholics, had to make a decision.

They could refuse to eat, and therefore die.

They could commit suicide.

Or they could commit cannibalism.

"To survive, we would have to eat the dead bodies of our friends," Parrado said.

The survivors worked together, he said, forming a bond so strong that each one gave the others permission to eat their flesh if they died.

Like in a workplace that functions well, everyone had a purpose and contributed to the survival of the group. One teammate, for example, invented a kind of sunglasses, fashioned from materials in the cockpit and elastics used to secure magazines. Without those, Parrado said, they would have gone blind from the high-altitude glare.

The group had survived for 2Ç weeks when an avalanche buried them as they huddled in the plane in the middle of the night. Nine more died; the rest took three days to dig through 15 feet of snow piled above the fuselage.

But, Parrado said, from that emotional low came life. They had nine more bodies to provide food.

By then, Parrado knew someone had to trek across the Andes to Chile. His teammates called it a "kamikaze expedition."

Parrado and Roberto Canessa thought the trip might take two days. Ten days later and near death, they reached a crevasse with a river at the bottom. On the other side was a shepherd, who threw them paper wrapped around a rock.

Parrado wrote: "I come from a plane that fell in the mountains. I am Uruguayan. We have been walking for 10 days. I have a friend up there who is injured. In the plane there are still 14 injured people. We have to get out of here quickly and we don't know how. We don't have any food. We are weak. When are you going to come and fetch us? We can't even walk. Where are we?"

In two days, helicopters rescued everyone.

The human resources convention responded to Parrado's story with tears and a standing ovation. Hundreds stood in line for hours at Moscone Center, waiting for him to autograph "Alive," the book about the ordeal.

Crash survivor Nando Parrado told the Society for Human Resource Management convention that his experience in the Andes taught him valuable lessons about teamwork, faith and the importance of friendship.